Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs): An Overview and Challenges

Abstract

Vehicu lar ad-hoc networks (VANETs) technology has emerged as an important research area over the last few years. Being ad-hoc in nature, VA NET is a type of networks that is created from the concept of establishing a network of cars for a specific need or situation. VA NETs have now been established as reliable networks that vehicles use for co mmunication purpose on highways or urban environments. Along with the benefits, there arise a large number of challenges in VANET such as provisioning of QoS, h igh connectivity and bandwidth and security to vehicle and individual privacy. This article presents state-of-the-art of VANET and discusses the related issues. Network architecture, signal modeling and propagation mechanis m, mobility modeling, routing protocols and network security are discussed in detail. Main findings of this paper are that an efficient and robust VANET is one wh ich satisfies all design parameters such as QoS, minimu m latency, low BER and high PDR. So me key research areas and challenges in VANET are presented at the end of the paper.